With Mark Millar, Simon Kinberg and Matthew Vaughn all acting as overseers, 20th Century Fox is looking to take a leaf out of Disney/Marvel's book and line up a lot of superhero product for the marketplace. With X-Men: Apocalypse already set for 2016, the studio has announced a Fantastic Four sequel for July 14, 2017, the next Wolverine outing for March 3, 2017 and an untitled Marvel movie for July 13, 2018.

Of the announcements, the Fantastic Four sequel is perhaps the most surprising, given that Josh Trank and his freshly confirmed cast have yet to even start shooting the first of the rebooted efforts. It would appear to be a big ol' vote of confidence in the wake of recent rumours about trouble for Trank.

As for the new Wolverine film? James Mangold is already developing that one, which should once again see Hugh Jackman clawing around. In an added development, Deadline reports that David James Kelly, who wrote the aborted Daredevil reboot and is adapting Dark Horse title Mind MGMT for Ridley Scott, is now on script duty for that.

So what could the "mystery" 2018 film be? There are several candidates. We might be looking at an X-Men/Fantastic Four crossover or, more likely,the X-Force project that Kick-Ass 2's Jeff Wadlow is scripting. We might even finally see Deadpool get that long-vaunted solo outing, but that almost seems too much to hope for. The next Fox-produced Marvel pic is, of course, X-Men: Days Of Future Past, which arrives on May 22.

In related Fox release date news, Taken 3 scored a Jan 9, 2015 launch, while March 4, 2016 has been pencilled in for an untitled Ridley Scott effort. Given the remarkable number of projects he has in development, this could be almost anything, though the current speculation is pointing to the Prometheus follow-up. Watch this space, in which no-one will be able to hear you scream.

Man, can you imagine if one of these films just got made without a deadline, and they just waited to see how long it needed instead of cramming everything into a schedule? I can barely imagine such a crazy world as that. It's mind blowing to speculate. Plans, schedules, restrictions, they're all awesome though. Everything is awesome. Isn't it? More